This was absolutely the case, there was a big descent just before 30km, prior to that I was feeling really good, and holding 4:18/km after the descent I could really feel my hamstrings, I was still running at sub 4:30 pace but it became an effort. At 36km there was nothing left.
Valencia bud, 4weeks on Sunday. A few more juicy sessions and then time to pull the pin 
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Malaga. 6 weeks on Sunday
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Well done Matt… great time, fingers crossed it gets you into London. With zero taper and a non-marathon specific plan it would always bite in the last 10k.
I’m sure if you prioritize one you’ll comfortably go sub 3 soon.
I had awesome DOMS last week, I’m pretty sure made worse by the downhills as discussed.
Last day of my hols today… managed to do 3x1500m swims while I’ve been here, in one of the nicest outdoor pools I ever swam in. 
♂ 
Back to rainy reality tomorrow…
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Yeah i saw a few of your pics @twhat and thought that you may be experiencing a slight bump when you touch down in the UK to this miserable weather!! It’s been grim this week.
What did we do before gels I wonder! I think I used a couple of the original ‘Leppin Squeezy’ gels in the Liskeard 20 back in about 1996; it felt pioneering back then!
I ran 2:17 on a really tough course; should have done a Spring marathon that year 
Ha yeah… Desert boy 
My sister in law lives here. Her husband is getting into triathlon… you can see why…
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Took a beating yesterday. Was ill and off from work all week (horrible cough and cold which wouldnt go away). Decided to go against doctors orders and still run and still tried to hit the goal of ~2:53. Blew up much earlier that I would have liked and death marched the final miles to finish in 3:06 something.
Not a fun way to run a marathon. Especially when I felt great going into it until a week ago. ho-hum.
Bad luck Shaun. Was just looking at your strava splits a little while ago. It all sounds unfortunately very reminiscent of my VLM experience in April. You got a bit further than me (I quit at 18 miles) but was still under 3hr pace at that point. In all honesty, I knew from 10k that I wasn’t going to have enough in the tank.
Like you, I’d have battled on if I’d not done VLM before, but that can’t have been easy to do so well done for at least finishing and getting the medal!
Random question … were you manually lapping to try and keep pace with the mile markers?
Although I wsn’t feeling well, I was confident I had done the training and decided to go with it even though all the signs were saying it probably wasnt on. I started with a couple of mates who were aiming for a few minutes slower and basically said it was going to be a bit of a PB or bust kind of day, and was unfortunately the latter
Random question … were you manually lapping to try and keep pace with the mile markers?<
Exactly this - I was using the Garmin IQ App ‘Race Screen’ - GPS is a bit rubbish in NYC so I just lapped myself (in addition to the GPS 1 mile lapping) so that the app could give me a proper average pace and estimated finish time. Definitely good for a big city marathon where you can trust the mile markers. It just makes my strava data look a bit wonky
I thought it might have been something like that. I’ve heard of those kind of apps. I wonder if you could just turn off the automated 1 mile laps to prevent the mini-laps that show up in your strava data?
Yup. Bookmarked that.
The in-laws live at the top of the clough, so a super simple start 
After my poor attempt at a new marathon pb this past weekend - I was much fitter and had done a lot more, better training, but probably went too fast for the (relatively) hilly course and was sick the week leading up to it - I am looking at a second attempt in 2 weeks time
21 days between marathons. Though i’m thinking of the first as a 17 mile slightly-above-marathon-pace training run with a 9 mile cool down. Just got to see if the legs recover and I hold on to the toenail that looks like it wants to leave my foot, but if no issues it could be a late entry
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If anyone is after a discount code for Vaporfly Next %. Use GAMETIME22 on the Nike app. Drops the price to £187 
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Awesome, thanks for that. I’d been putting this purchase off waiting for my 20% discount code but 22% seems as good as it gets. Seems to work with shoes other than the next% too.
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@stenard I notice you’re doing some pretty long MP efforts in your long runs (no argument there, obviously great training and nicely specific to your target distance obvs). Are you doing much other interval work running-wise? Seems like mostly your coach has these as the key sessions each week and therefore the rest of your week less intense than a typical mara plan? Seems a sensible approach to me given you’ve already got a decent base/enough speed to work off.
If you can do 38K with 22K at mara pace in training that’s got to be pretty encouraging. But that’s a tough session!
It’s a fair question. I was earlier, but certainly doesnt seem so much now. Even most of my bike work is fairly steady state. That said, some of my longer runs are pseudo-intervals with over-under work.
So 10 days ago my midweek session was a 22k main block of 8x(1.6k at 10-15s/km faster than MP ; 1.2k at 30s/km slower than MP). With that, I was hitting about 6:15 for the mile reps, whereas my HM pace is about 6:00 per mile, so I haven’t recently been doing any proper VO2max type work, but there’s still been some intervals in there.
The long run this weekend was a fraction slower on the faster than MP k’s, but only by a handful of seconds.
It’s tended to be that my midweek and weekend long runs have opposed one another as well, so one has been some kind of intervals with the other being something more sustained. For example:
w/c 14/10 - midweek: 6x(1mile faster than MP, 0.75mile slower than MP) | weekend: 24k with 10k at MP
w/c 21/10 - midweek: 8x1.5mile ramp (missed this one due to illness) | weekend: 20 miles steady
w/c 28/10 - midweek: 8x(1mile faster than MP, 0.75mile slower than MP) | weekend: 32k with 10k at MP
w/c 04/11 - midweek: 20k at MP | 35k with 12x(1k faster than MP, 1k slower than MP)
w/c 11/11 - midweek: 8x1.5mile ramp | weekend: 38k with 22k at MP
Last true track session was Oct 1st. The three weeks culminating in that one had all had track session, fartlek sessions, and hill reps. So I think it’s fair to say there’s largely just been periodisation.
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@stenard it seems like you’re running so well at the moment, how long do you have left?
I’m hoping to join the sub-75 club this weekend to get my space for London Marathon next year. Bit of a spanner in the works when I got mugged at knifepoint on Friday… got a good black eye to show for it at least.
Thank god they didn’t steal my running watch, or I’d have been screwed
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Jeez, that’s awful Sam. Hope you’re ok mate. Dirty f**ing bastrds!!